Chapter: A Comprehensive Treatment of Emancipation

If a man says to his slave, “You are free,” “You are emancipated,” or “You are released,” the slave is immediately set free and leaves the master’s ownership; there is no disagreement about this when the owner intended manumission or addressed the slave with that intention.

According to Mālik, any wording by which the owner means to free his slave effects emancipation—whatever the expression may be—such as, “I have granted you your own self,” “Go,” “Be gone,” “Leave,” and the like, provided he intends emancipation thereby. Some of the scholars of Medina disagree, just as they differ with him on the question of divorce issued with such indirect phrases.

Mālik also said: If a man delegates to his slave the power to free himself, it is not valid unless the slave employs the explicit formulas of manumission; however, in Mālik’s view, it is permissible when the owner delegates that authority to a stranger.

No emancipation is effected by a mere slip of the tongue with a manumission formula when the speaker does not intend it. If a person is unsure whether emancipation has actually taken place, it is deemed to have taken effect—and scholars other than Mālik